![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper examines the connections between two key Western cultural texts: Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella Heart of Darkness, set in the Belgian Congo; and the Oscar-winning movie Apocalypse Now (dir. Francis Coppola, 1979). The synergies between these two works are viewed through the lens of postcolonial thought, as shaped in particular by the arguments of Edward Said and Chinhua Achebe. The erasure of the native “other” in both novel and film is argued to point to a persistent Western cultural resistance to non-Judeo-Christian, non-Western subjectivities, be they located in Africa, South East Asia or elsewhere. Instead we have a dominant depiction of the native “other” as stereotype (threatening, barbaric, uncivilized), as merged with a dangerous local environment, or as barely present at all.
Notes
Furthermore, Conrad is also implicated in Coppola's masterpiece via the considerable inspiration provided by the war correspondent Michael Herr's Dispatches, Herr having himself written the narration for the film, which is spoken by Willard throughout, thus mirroring the subjective narration of Conrad's novel.
Interestingly, the slang term Charlie, commonly refused to refer to the Vietnamese, is strangely reminiscent of Conrad's own character Marlow, who shared the name Charlie.
By contrast, while Thailand may be a welcoming location to make a film about the suppression of communism in a neighbouring country, the Thai government in turn refused to grant permission to 20th Century Fox to film the remake of the King and I – Anna and the King – in Thailand and the movie was instead made in Malaysia. Both the King and I and Anna and the King remain banned in Thailand owing to the disrespectful picture they are deemed to paint of the Siamese monarch.